Normandy and Brittnay

Today was the first class of Provincial French. In this class, we will be discussing the regions of French. This class is a lot less time consuming than Classical French and the food is more rustic. We started out with lecture as usual. The lecture was pretty boring and the chef I have for this class can go off on about 10 different subjects at time. It's very hard to follow her and feel confident in what she is telling us. I've had this teacher a couple of times last semester and wasn't that fond of her back then. Oh well, I'll just have to suck it up and focus on what I am really there for.

The recipes I made were the Coeur a la Creme and Huitres aux Amandes. The coeur a la creme can be either savory or sweet. We made a savory version. It included garlic, shallots and herbs. Essentially, you mix together cottage cheese, cream cheese and whipped cream with the above ingredients. You then put in in a heart shape mold (coeur means heart in French) with cheese cloth. There are special molds just for this recipe. The have holes in the bottom and the mold is raised to allow for the water to drain from the bottom, producing a block of creamy goodness! I have to say I didn't get a lot of flavor from the savory one and would much prefer a dessert one with a raspberry sauce. The other dish I did was oysters, topped with a compound butter of almonds, garlic, brandy and Cayenne. Then, on top of that was breadcrumbs with parsley. They baked in the oven for 5-10 minutes. I have to say, it was very good considering I don't care for almonds in my food.

Once lab was over, some of us headed over to Spirit, the bar we hang out at between lab and seminar. The reason I am bringing this up is because they had a beer on top there, Shipyard's Pumpkin Ale. It's so good. It's like pumpkin pie! You should try it.

For seminar, it was the first class of Food History. I have to admit that it wasn't as thrilling as I thought it would be, but good nonetheless. We learned about the history of the recipe. In reference to the whale vomit, it's a secretion from the whale that is very rare. They used to use it in old English recipes. Now, it's used by fine perfume manufacturers. The teacher told us about a couple in Australia coming across a huge glob of it that weighed 32 pounds, they made over $300,000 on it!!! Anyways, I actually have homework for this class! I'm kind of excited about it. I need to find one common recipe, then find it in 5 different cookbooks over time. I need to compare these recipes and write a report on it. I have to give reasons as to why the ingredients may be different, the cooking techniques may be different and how lifestyles were depending on the years these recipes were written for. I think this will actually be really cook to do! I super excited because I bought a Plimoth Plantation cookbook while we were there last and I know they have some cool recipes in there. Next week we will be discussing the history of the kitchen. This one should be cool, especially if we talk about the evolution of the 'tools' in the kitchen.

Today's Recipes Coeur a la Creme, Huitres aux Amandes, La Cotriade, Potage au Deux Haricots, Roti de Porc au Pruneaux, Apple and Onion Stew, Buckwheat Crepes, Chou-Fleur au Gratin, Salade aux Fines Herbes, Le Floron Bread, Gateau Breton aux Apricots, Kough Amann